December is here and we have almost finished our visiting of churches for this year of furlough. We have visited 31 so far this year and have one more to go. The Lord has kept us safe on all the many miles we have traveled and we thank Him for that constantly. We have only had one problem with the van this whole year (a tee that joins several radiator hoses broke in NY out in the middle of nowhere) and we only had a couple of hours delay. Thank you also to the many of you who prayed for our youth missions' trip to Puerto Rico. The students enjoyed the week and learned a lot.
We have thoroughly enjoyed revisiting all of our supporting churches this year and also meeting a few new ones. What a blessing it is to have the churches that make up our prayer, financial and emotional support team. Your prayers, financial support and encouraging words this year have been very appreciated. We thank the Lord for each one of you. Some churches have even asked about people from our prayer letters that we didn't even mention in our slide presentation. You don't know how encouraging that is. Thank you.
This fall Mike has stayed busy teaching Bible in Mentor Christian School. He was able to help out on several painting projects around the church as well as several other jobs. Faith has had her hands full with watching Matthew and Cherith during the days. She hasn't felt very well for the past several months. The reason is because she is expecting our seventh child. Her sciatic nerve has given her a good deal of discomfort during these beginning months. That is not a good sign for the more difficult later months to come. Please pray for her. We have both stayed very busy also getting Cristiana to and from her therapies for her dyslexia. We finally found someone who could deal with the reading problem and we started in October. There has been some small progress so we ask your prayers for some big breakthroughs.
Faith's mom went through a bout with pneumonia in October and then had some congestive heart failure in November. On November 30 she had a heart catheterization and the doctors could not find any blockages. Praise the Lord for that. We were able to spend Thanksgiving week with Faith's mom and dad and are planning on going back for Christmas. We have been able to spend a lot of time with Mike's mom as we have been living in her house this year. We are thankful to her for a place to stay right in our home base.
Our original plans were to leave to return to Mexico around December 21 when the kids' school vacation starts. However, we feel the need to wait one more month or so to give Cristiana another month of her therapy. Mike is planning on going back to Mexico for a week to ten days in January to get the vandalized plumbing fixed and ready for us to live there. We will probably leave near the end of January to drive back to Mexico City. (Think five days at least in the van with all the kids and Faith's legs hurting. Then after you get done thinking, pray for us.)
We continue to get good reports from Ruben and Heidi in Mexico. They have experienced many of the trials of the people that we have experienced and have also seen God work in great and wonderful ways in their hearts. Please pray for Heidi as her health has not been good. Pray that God would heal her in His perfect will or give her the grace to continually deal with the providential problems that He allows her to experience.
We wish all of a you a very Christ-centered Christmas and thank each one of you for your faithful prayers and support.
In Christ,
Mike for all the Goldfusses
